Aidan Rankin has an MA in Modern History from Pembroke College, Oxford and an MSc (Econ.) from the London School of Economics. His postgraduate work was concerned with democratic transitions in Latin America and the emergence of new social and civil rights movement. The focus of his research was the Southern Cone countries and he conducted his field work in Montevideo, Uruguay. He has also worked in the NGO sector, as press officer for Survival International, the world-wide organisation promoting the rights of indigenous peoples.

In academic publishing, he edited ‘New European’ the cultural section of the European Business Review from 1999-2007 and received the Literati Award for Excellence from Emerald Insight publishing. He has contributed articles and book reviews to the Times Literary Supplement, The New Statesman, The Spectator, The Tablet, The Ecologist and The Guardian. Aidan has written three books on Jain thought, The Jain Path: Ancient Wisdom for the West, Many-Sided Wisdom: A New Politics of the Spirit and (in 2013) Living Jainism: An Ethical Science. He is also the author of Shinto: A Celebration of Life, a description of the philosophy behind the oldest religion of Japan. In 2014, he received the 2014 Alain Daniélou Research Award from the India-Europe Foundation for New Dialogues (FIND) for his books on Jainism.

In his spare time, Aidan is working on a novel about the excesses of the property sector which is part psychological thriller and part social satire and based on his experience of managing properties in central London. He is also researching a book on Jain ethics as applied to business and economics.